Archive for October, 2010

The “Going all in electioneering” nature of the Alex Jones land for Rand Paul continues, and accelerates as Election Day approaches. So we get every stupid twist and turn on this election featured, with glowing pictures of Rand Paul in the headline image rotation. So they approach this headline:

BILL CLINTON!!!The Democratic establishment is pulling out the big guns in an all out effort to prevent Rand Paul from becoming a Kentucky senator this November by dispatching former president Bill Clinton to campaign for Paul’s opponent Jack Conway on the eve of the election.Don’t feel so special, guys. We understand Obama as going to various places to excite the base, so he touched down for a rally in Portland and in California. There is no Obama base in Kentucky. Obama was scorched in the primary by 40 points. So goes Clinton.
See also into the Congressional District of one Heath Shuler.
I don’t think “Tea Party Express Token Democrat” Idaho Walt Minnick is getting either one. Though, that endorsement is over. He’s not going full tilt on the “Repeal” buzz word.:You may have heard the news that the Tea Party Express today endorsed Raul Labrador, after first endorsing Minnick, who declined the endorsement, and who rebuffed attempts by TPX to get him to reconsider. Those are the first words in a press release from the Walt Minnick campaign. They also asked if the voters were confused by the Tea Party Express endorsement.This puzzles me a bit. Not that they’d endorse Minnick, but that Minnick would be in a position to “Decline the Endorsement”. If an organization endorses you, can’t you do whatever you want with it — including literally piece on a piece of paper with the endorsement — and not be considered “declining” it.

As for Paul and Clinton.The establishment has crucified Rand Paul for his tangential involvement in a harmless and consensual college prank for weeks because, unlike alleged rapist Clinton, who they defended to the hilt, Rand Paul represents a serious threat to the status quo and has become the de facto voice of the Tea Party – that’s why Washington elitists and their liberal media sycophants will continue to invent hoaxes, overhype non-events from 30 years ago, and slander Rand Paul ceaselessly in a desperate effort to eviscerate the massive support he enjoys in Kentucky that is set to help him secure a place in the Senate and become a true representative of the American people.

I sort of don’t understand the Alex Jones infatuation on Rand Paul, or I do understand it but tend to think his line against the “New World Order” unravels right about here. Rand Paul has made remarkable strides toward ingratiating himself with the Republican Party Establishment. But they’ve chosen their politicos to have an emotional attachment to — they are the Pauls.

Frankly, Sharron Angle should be their guy/gal — she’s the only “Tea Partier” that’s at any time in the general election done anything to tweak her party honchos, and looks to take her “39 to Angle” voting record into the Senate. But there is no politicing on her behalf. The best we get is some anti-Harry Reid stuff, and a far distant defense for some anti-fluoridation against the ”
I don’t get anything for Joe Miller, save a news-blip on his Security, so I can’t guage where he stands in this picture.

Still, the Clinton angle gives the commenters a chance to do this:

MonkeyBrain Says:Google Clinton Body Count, since every time I post the list of Murders involving the Clintons webmasters remove it.I think they’re trying to avoid libel, moreso than reputation. They let “traveller9878″ through, and all he talks about is the “Jews”.:

Sung Manitu-Tanka Says: Obama WILL be removed one way or another get my drift…..
But then you will really have some challenges ahead of you that you are ill prepared for…..

MARK OF THE BEAST Reply:
The party really gets rolling after Odumba gets the Kennedy special. You have no idea what civil unrest will unfold when the upside down fool disappers like Hoffa or whatever the Globalists come up with.One thing is sure, Odumba has gone rogue and actually suffering from a psychotic delusion that he is a real leader. He presents a clear and present danger to the NWO agenda at this point. Change is coming.

To the other side of the political ledger, or perhaps in a way the same disenfranchised side… A question I was wondering about with concerns to Obama’s visit to Portland — there would be protests, I was sure of that. Would there be any media coverage or photographs showing anything but the Tea Partiers — ie: would there be any sign of the dreaded “Anarchists” / Left flank pointing to liberal (the group they hate the most) hypocrites?

We’ve entered a bizarro world. I don’t think Virginia Thomas understand the basic lessons of the “Prodigal Son”, and I can not quite suggest this is an Inverse example of that story.

Drearily, the only thing to do is to watch as she parades onto various right-wing media outlets to a hero’s welcome, assumption that the Truth is behind her and she was only reaching out to a woman — “a little bit slutty and a little bit nutty” — who smeared her husband oh so many years ago — a political plot by a bunch of hypocritical Liberals.
Assuming that side of the story… we run back again to… “Huh?” The only answer is it’s part of a politically charged Ideologically driven Gambit.

But we’re lost in a fog of Historical Revisionism. What are these people thinking?4th Graders in Virginia received new textbooks last month. The textbook grossly distorted the Civil War and African Americans role in it. The textbook claims that two battalions of African American soldiers fought for the Confederacy under famed Gen. Stonewall Jackson. It is a deliberate misrepresentation in order to bolster a political agenda. Carol Sheriff, a Civil War expert at the College of William and Mary, discovered the error in her daughter’s copy of the offending book, “Our Virginia: Past and Present.” “As far as we know from the historical record, not a single black person participated in a battle under the command of Stonewall Jackson,” Sheriff wrote on a web chat on washingtonpost.com. “There is historical evidence that individual blacks, usually servants who followed their masters to the front, occasionally picked up guns in the heat of battle. But it was illegal in the Confederacy to use blacks as soldiers until the waning days of the war (early 1865). A few companies . . . were raised then, but none saw battle action, as the surrender followed shortly thereafter. Stonewall Jackson had died in 1863, so no black soldiers could have served under his command.”

One of the “disinfo” books has a piece about black Confederate soldiers with the “Yep! They existed!” aura of quirks of history. It makes for a historical footnote, and no more. I suppose an interesting hour long documentary could be made out of the historical examples, or an interesting little book, but not without a bit of stretching. It is a drop in the bucket against a vaster background of what you’d expect — slaves running to the oncoming Union troops en masse, escaping to the North to fight themselves, various items of civil disobedience. A history book can be complete without mention of this anomolous. I suggest that if you’re a Southerner in the mind to embarrass the North or flood past the simplistic narrative of the Cold War, a better tact would be to the more historically significant sentiment of desertions in the Union around the Emancipation Proclamation with the opinion “Why should I fight to free the negro?”, and the atmosphere of various draft Riots.

Here’s something. A Rutherford Hayes is running for president.
Which brings a new and interesting sentiment to these proceedings I have never seen expressed before: I have never seen Rutherford Hayes expressed as the Worst President before now.
I tend to think History plays a neat trick with this question, such that now — here in the year 2010, we should be able to agree on the answer to the worst presidents. It’s a thought I had when I stared at the cover of the American Spectator.
“Yeah, whatever“.
If we consider Slavery the Original Sin of America, and if we consider that there was a general consensus at the Foundation of the nation that Slavery was a “Necessary Evil” that would be moved to an end — if somewhere in the future — and we consider that this consensus was supplanted with the prevailing ideology gaining in the South switching to one of a “positive good” tied to the Way of the South.
The worst four presidents would have to be the ones who intentionally sought the extension of slavery — Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan — and then the man who dashed Emancipation at its inception — Andrew Johnson.
But this note on “worst ever”, which I see posted a few other spots, is in keeping with the historical ratings where Grant has risen and Hayes has fallen — appropriately as we realign the historical narrative. (Hayes seems to have been at the 25 to 33 percentile of presidents, where he is now at the 67-75.) But Hayes was following popular sentiment, expressed by Grant with — (quick easy cheat from wikipedia:). the whole public is tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in the South,”, insisting that state militias should handle the problems, not the Army. Grant was concerned that increased military pressure in the South would cause white supremacists in the North to bolt from the Republican Party, Grant’s second to last State of the Union address full of Pleas for Racial Justice, his last one devoid of the topic.
… Or so goes my historical understanding.

The new Rutherford Hayes, grabbing some attention as your fringe political candidate, is no Rutherford Hayes.

Getting back to the gambig of personal historical revisionism:

The ad got a lot of attention in the blogosphere mainly as a kind of liberal Rorsach test: some loved its aggressiveness, others hated that it went after Paul’s religiosity (or implied lack thereof). But I had no idea, until I arrived in Kentucky, what a big deal it is here. The controversy is absolutely dominating local coverage of the race: as a news story on all the local channels, in the newspapers, and of course on television as the ad itself (and Paul’s rebuttal that Conway is “bearing false witness”) is in constant rotation. This is after it originally flared up as a serious issue over the summer.

I spent the morning in Louisville talking to some local politicos (mainly Republicans), who think Paul is going to pull it out, but agree that the race is still close and that Paul isn’t doing a good job of handling “Aqua Buddha.” For one thing, it’s clearly gotten under his skin, and his campaign has gotten totally off message: He’s stopped talking about Obama (which is every Kentucky Republican’s most effective cudgel). What’s more, he’s guaranteed that the story will drag on for at least a few more days because at the end of the first candidate debate, Paul dramatically announced that he would not shake hands with Conway because of the ad and would not participate in the next debate, scheduled for Monday. Complicating matters for Paul is that he won’t deny the story. It’s certainly his right to stand on principle and refuse to discuss a matter he says is beneath his dignity, but in a raw political sense that’s keeping the story going. […]

Is there anyone out there who does not believe that Rand Paul did not do that college-era stunt? The cleverest explanation of its relevance — Ron Paul and Rand Paul represent two strands of Libertarianism, Ron Paul the cranky old guy “Get off My Lawn” variety, Rand Paul the arrogant Adolescent frat boy variety — is lost in this electorate outside the insistence on the “bearing false witness” line of crappola.
Maybe there are partisans who think this story is a lie (as opposed to meaningless), who stretch credulity in demanding that this woman throw away her anonymity.

… even if history shows that twenty years from now, she may face a creepy phone call suggesting repentence in apology form.

We have a bit of contradictions with regards to the upcoming “Democratic Party Bloodbath” in the Grand Horse Race of American politics. The House? Speaker Boehner. As per Nate Silver:

For the time being, we are still in a universe where Democrats could probably hold the House by having the coin come up heads in a sufficient number of tossup races. We may not be far from the point, however, where their chances would boil down, in essence, to there being systemic errors in the polls, which could potentially affect a large number of races — or there being some sort of last-minute change in the macro environment.

But it is a little hard to compute a House Scenario with things going on with the movements in the easier to digest and follow Senate. I recognize that, say, a five point lead at this point in the game is more significant than a ten point lead two months ago — and “Momentum” leads straight to a stall. But we’re in a strange state here.

Well la de freaking da. The eye popping sentence to end all eye popping sentences in this game of “Horse Race”s. ALASKA: [Joe] Miller’s getting close to being in free-fall if some private polling is to be believed.Neat, huh? Regretably we’re in a world where Joe Miller’s downfall benefits Lisa Murkowski as much as Scott McAdams.A historical memo: Four years later, Knowles was re-elected under remarkably similar circumstances, despite dreadful approval numbers and an electorate that was just as anti-Democrat as ever. His Republican opponent self destructed in a fashion that Mr. Miller hasn’t yet touched, culminating with with the Republican Party taking the remarkable step of formally withdrawing their nomination of him after ballots were printed. I think he finished 3rd behind Governor Knowles and some Republican State Senator who – wait for it – ran a write in campaign at the last minute.I seem to recall Knowles campaign strategy turning into “Dump all the add buys, cancel all the public appearances, close the shades, turn off the lights, and don’t let the hear you laughing.” It worked.

The wild card nature of this race shows through with the type of question pollsters are asking:If the election for U.S. Senate were held today and the candidates were Scott McAdams, the Democrat and Joe Miller, the Republican, who would you be more likely to vote for or would you write in the name of Lisa Murkowski, who is also running?We’ll see…

Wisconsin. Pay little attention and don’t get in trapped in following these things, but these polls are going to kill me. I am easy to dismiss an odd little poll like this one as an outlier or easily disregarded internal poll. But that’s how I treated the poll in Pennsylvania that showed Sestack ahead, and…

Pennsylvania: But publications like The Hotline have indicated, and some contacts of mine have related, that not only do Democratic internal polls show the race tightening, but Republican ones do as well.

Maybe Feingold remains politically, or maybe not. Apparently Sestack isn’t. Odd — nothing new has happened on a “swing 7 percentage” scale, has it? The electorate must have a positive reaction to prominent displays of dog poop.

I have a working theory with candidates Feingold and Sestack. The reason a relatively small margin is generally insurmontable a month may in large part just be that this point, financial resources are apt to dry up as the candidates fade into electoral oblivion. Feingold and Sestack have an advantage on this socre where the Democratic candidates in Ohio and New Hampshire don’t — a national constituency of “netroots”, so they remain solvent to fight through to election day, and run dog poop themed commercials.
Unfortunately, Feingold may not own a dog.

KENTUCKY In the latest Rasmussen poll Rand Paul is ahead of Jack Conway by 5 points. But this is down from last month where Paul was ahead 11 points. A poll conducted by Bennett, Petts and Normington for the DSCC has Conway up by 2. Real Clear Politics scores the race for Paul, but only by 3. What is happening?The obvious culprit is “Aqua Buddha”. Or maybe it’s… Aqua Buddha floating about in a context of everything else.
What’s happening is that Rand Paul, in his response ad to Jack Conway, forsook the Aqua Buddha — and thus the Aqua Buddha has forsaken Rand Paul.
Interesting thought, as I read it, this is a back-handed way of defending Jack Conway on Ezra Klein’s part:Conway’s attack on Rand Paul, conversely, is coming under Conway’s name, so he also owns the backlash. That’s not a great strategy: If you’ve got a line of attack that decent people are likely to condemn, it’s wise to make sure they’re condemning someone who isn’t you. The Conway campaign would be better off if people were discussing whether Christians United Against Rand Paul had gone too far, rather than whether Jack Conway had gone too far.

The electorate rewards politicians when they defer their attacks to some other entity (even obnoxiously thinly disguised in terms of connections) and punish them for the same damned attack when they sign the attack. They’ll probably end up edging Paul a victory, but maybe the Kentucky electorate could do as a favor by changing those terms.

Democratic Latino voters could easily be forgiven for mistaking the new television ad making its way around Nevada as a message from like-minded liberals frustrated with the party’s inaction. “President Obama and the Democratic leadership made a commitment that immigration reform would be passed within a year. But two years have gone by and nothing, not even a vote in Congress.” That’s exactly what I’ve been saying! “With a Democratic president and supermajorities in both chambers of Congress, they have no excuses.” None! None at all! Okay, maybe some, but whatever, let’s move on. “Aren’t you tired of politicians playing games with your future?” Tired? I can barely keep my eyes open. “Do you really think it will be different this time?” Does Sharron Angle think at all? Okay, so what do we do about this? “Don’t vote this November, this is the only way to send them a clear message. Don’t. Vote.” Yeah, that’ll show … Wait, huh?

The ad’s unexpected suggestion comes courtesy of Robert de Posada, founder of Latinos for Reform, who told TPM he’s become equally frustrated with both parties. It sure seems like one more than the other, though. De Posada once served as Dick Armey’s co-director of Americans for Border and Economic Security and supports no amnesty, heightened border security, and employee verification. The website for Latinos for Reform lists its address as a P.O. box manned by Susan Arceneaux, a player in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but De Posada says that’s a mistake.

Swift Vote Veterans for Truth? Why does it seem like it’s aways just a rotation of the same five rich jerks over and over again?
An example of a classic “Forced Equivalency“:Indeed, Latinos have been accusing the state’s tea-party-backed Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, of race baiting by running ads with ominous-looking Hispanic men crossing the U.S. border. Angle’s campaign, meanwhile, has begun to charge her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with “playing the race card” as he seeks to capitalize on Angle’s gaffes in front of local Latino students and a GOP ad urging Hispanics to not vote.IT BURNS!!! IT BURNS!!!!

The polling is even, though I gather a slight tilt for Angle. Reid and the Democrats, in the same manner that Feingold and various others, retort that they’ve got a “Ground Game” that’d make up for any slight edge to their opponent. We will see. The “Tea Party Express” and the former Alaskan governor started their bus tour here, and I gather will end it — in that classic race where the average voter will stand at the polling lever, hold their nose and look away as they sigh in pulling their level deciding on a candidate, and not be too concerned if the lever slipped.

Illinois. A search of google news getting at “Alexi Giannoulias V. Mark Kirk” Giannouliasthat we’re in la la land in terms “Watching the Polls”, with the typical 3 points either way, and the accusations from partisan sources that the poll showing the other guy ahead is rigged or pushed, touting their preferred poll.
Like with Nevada, and in a way with Kentucky, the race will come down to who the electorate hates the least — with a Green Party candidate poised to spoil more than the Libertarian candidate.

West Virginia. This appears to be a race I would go ahead and say “Nut to this” and roll over to the “Mountain Party” candidate. (This is contrast to Jack Conway in the same land of Coal, who just meets a minimum standard.) The state appears a two party duopoly under the behest of King Coal, with a Democratic governor that the state Republican Party has long been comfortable with in the way the Democrat is comfortable with tacit support of Republicans. In a course like this, it’s only natural that your Republican Party candidate is going to be a mighty screwball. But I’ll say it’s good that the spell of John Raese-mania has faded.
You know… Rush Limbaugh was instrumental in electing the Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri in 2006, he seems poised to help the 2010 West Virginia candidate. But these things have already built up — the thing I’m having a hard time figuring out with this thing is… What’s with John Raese’s accent? Is that, like, a New England brogue?

Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot initiative that would suspend California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity.” […]

With a personalized letter signed by Charles Koch, the invitation to the four-day Rancho Mirage meeting opens with a grand call to action: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts — as the letter says, “to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.” […]

The Kochs also seek to cultivate Americans’ growing concern about the growth of government: at the most recent meeting, in Aspen, Colo., in June, some of the wealthiest people in America listened to a presentation on “a vision of how we can retain the moral high ground and make the new case for liberty and smaller government that appeals to all Americans, rich and poor.” […]

The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, “Is America on the Road to Serfdom?” (The title refers to a classic of Austrian economic thought that informs libertarian ideology, popularized by Mr. Beck on his show.)The participants included some of the nation’s wealthiest families and biggest names in finance: private equity and hedge fund executives like John Childs, Cliff Asness, Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin; Phil Anschutz, the entertainment and media mogul ranked by Forbes as the 34th-richest person in the country; Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway; Steve Bechtel of the giant construction firm; and Kenneth Langone of Home Depot.

The same dozen rich guys, ready to unveil new rotating fly by night Front Groups.
… and an assist from… GLEN BECK???

Recently, Beck went hat in hand to his radio audience, stronglyencouraging his listeners to open their wallets and make October 14 “the largest day of fundraising for the Chamber of Commerce ever.” Beck pledged to personally donate $10,000.
You know… I don’t understand why an “average” individual would donate money to the Chamber of Commerce. It’s the same rule with a self financed rich political candidate (Meg Whitman in California as an example) — even if you agree with them… Why?
For that matter, there is no Republican National Committee anymore. It’s all American Crossroads, baby!

Delia Lopez…
She is running advertisements on KPOJ. (A few skips from the “Technocracy” ad spot, I suppose.) For the life of me, I don’t really know why. I could theorize ways her pitch — Earl Blumenauer is throwing people out of his office — might resonate with the listenership of KPOJ. But I don’t understand her latest ad.
“Go to my website and watch these videos!”
… of, Earl Blumenuer calling the “Tea Party” rally names, “weasals” as the case may be — and for some reason her ad drops out just after the name “Glenn Beck”, with the statement … what is it? … “This is what Earl Blumenauer thinks of US!”
… No. That’s, I guess, what Earl Bluemenuer thinks of you, not us. Hence his new dorky up-beat ad.

Next clip of Earl Blumenauer… what is this? It’s someone asking his why he opposes such a common sense measure as the Balanced Budget Amendment with a perfectly appropriate answer that might resonate with a different audience — there’s, like, half a dozen conservative talk radio stations to choose from, and the video for the commercial spots shown on youtube and her campaign website show her next to a local host on KPAM. In the “citizen journalism” that is represented with the q and a, Blumenauer drops in the word “Opportunity”, hence getting Delia Lopez to shout “Opportunity???” in a tone of outrage. I can’t quite tell if this counts as “out of context theater”, but it is slim pickings.

All very weird.

THIS is funny.Progressive Earl Blumenauer comes in a close second and this man is so far out of touch with his constituents its not even funny.

So what? The ad would work alongside the ad played on the various stations “What is Obama thinking? He’s attacking the good business people job creators of the Chamber of Commerce and the upstanding Grass Roots millions of the Tea Party and Freedom Works??? Instead of listening to them???”
Zounds! The mind reels!
I don’t know if it’d inch her vote total up to above the 20s percentage into the 30s, but it’d probably fish for some more campaign donations in the “Campaiging as a hobby” that these runs represent. But it appears she has work to do. When you type “Earl Blumenuer” into youtube, the “Promoted Video” choice is Libertarian / “Independent Party” candidate Jeff Lawrence. We’ll just see who comes in second.

California: Sans Sarah Palin, Carly Fiorina brought in the big guns of John McCain. And

“Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I’ve had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her. This is not a senator who is a friend of America’s heroes and it is something we must hold her accountable for on November 2nd.”

That’s just how the man who most epitomizes the form the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, a place where Cordiality Reigns Supreme, rolls.

FLORIDA: Sarah Palin was not in California. She was in Florida, though. The race is over — always needed either Crist or Meek to collapse their campaign to have any sort of chance against Rubio. Who knows if Palin would be in Florida if it weren’t over?

Washington: Dino Rossi, in his debate with Patty Murray, had some of that rhetoric that has you running for the Hills. Ever mindful of finding a soundbyte, we get a version of the “the next generation will live in tyranny and will have to look up the word ‘freedom’ in the dictionary.”

“America is in trouble If we don’t have a course correction in this election we’re going to wake up 24 months from now in a country we don’t even recognize.”
Let the future History books of a future civilization, what the USA is to the Ancient Greeks, show that the electorate for the State of Washington, by rejecting Dino Rossi for a third time, played the instrumental role in bringing about a new Dark Ages. Those are the stakes, Washington State.

ALASKA: Joe Miller versus Scott McAdams is a face off between Beards and Mustaches.
Also, everyone wants to tug at the coat-tails of the late Ted Stevens.
Nate Silver and 538, who had once discounted the possibility of a McAdams victory, is now very much hedging. So it goes…The news last night that Mr. Miller’s security detail had handcuffed and detained a reporter, Tony Hopfinger, after a town-hall-style meeting held by Mr. Miller is unlikely to reverse those trends, and may accelerate them. (A statement by Mr. Miller defended the actions, characterizing the reporter as “potentially violent.”)This race is something of a wild card. I’d be little surprised with just about any outcome.
I am kind of afraid of looking around and seeing how people are reacting to to the Security Handcuffing, as it will correlate almost exactly to their partisan predelictions regarding Joe Miller.

DELAWARE: Such as it goes with Christine O’Donnell, and the fire breathing Conservative Talk Radio hosts, who give O’Donnell — and her debate performance — more leeway than they could dream of giving any Democrat. Leaving aside the wholly legitimate question of what Recent Supreme Court Decisions you disagree with — and the curious reply “Can you give me an example?” to “I’ll put it on my website” — shades of the exact same thing in Katie Couric’s questioning of Sarah Palin.
I looked on her website. Maybe it’s there, beyond the front page “Donate Now to get her in the Lameduck Session” page that features Obama, Pelosi, and Reid saying presumably stupid things, but I don’t see it. I do see a Fred Barnes Weekly Standard article that trumpets that O’Donnell is getting a lot of media attention and Chris Coons isn’t — for what that’s worth.
The other high point of the debate was… the discussion of “bearded Marxists”.

So then I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a Marxist professor that made him become a Democrat. So when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenets of Marxism; not supporting eliminating death tax, which is a tenet of Marxism — I would argue that there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist beliefs, and I’m using his own words.BLITZER: Because a lot of people remember, because they’ve learned in last few weeks you did once describe yourself when you were in college a long time ago as a bearded Marxist.COONS: Great question, Wolf. I hope folks will go and read the article.
It’s an article that I wrote as a senior the day of our commencement speech and the title and the content of that clearly makes it obvious that it was a joke. There was a group of folks who I had shared a room with, my roommates junior year, who are in the Young Republican Club and who thought when I returned from Kenya and registered as a Democrat that doing so was proof that I had gone all the way over to the far left end, and so they jokingly called me a bearded Marxist. If you take five minutes and read the article, it’s clear on the face of it, it was a joke. Despite that, my opponent and lots of folks in the right wing media have endlessly spun this. I am not now, nor have I ever been, anything but a clean-shaven capitalist.O’DONNELL: Well, I would — I would stand to disagree because, first of all, if you’re saying what I said on a comedy show is relevant to this election, then absolutely you writing an article, forget the bearded Marxist comment, you writing an article saying that you learned your beliefs from an articulate, intelligent Marxist professor and that’s what made you become a Democrat, that should send chills up the spine of every Delaware voter because then if you compare that statement to your policies —COONS: If it were accurate, if it were true, I’d agree. But it’s not accurate. It’s not true.O’DONNELL: You said that on MSNBC just a few weeks ago. You said that on MSNBC.

Anyway, Christine O’donnell… is you, America. Think about that for a moment.

KENTUCKY: Truth be told, if I were in West Virginia — where the Democratic Senate candidate has surged ahead in the polls in part off of taking a conservative policy stance — or Kentucky, I may just chunk it all and base an affirmative vote off the baseline of … “Coal Miner Safety. What of it?” What other policy decisions will the Senators from these states have leverage over?
Jack Conway is running with the Chilian miners. No word on whether those 33 miners actually endorsed him.
Note the heavily bearded miner in that ad… as against the supposed hicks in the West Virginian Republican candidate’s ad.
In other Political Ad news… Jack Conway brings up the “Aqua Buddha” controversy“– and apparently the major part of that scandal is how it leads to his opposition to “Faith Based Initiatives”. And kill me.
So we’re one for one in the contest and what Conway insists on bringing up. The third issue Conways drudges up in his ads — relating to the drug war — is a bit of a draw… the drug is Meth, not Marijuana.

Colorado: I’ve been through this before.
I want to be on the side of Ken Buck’s “restatement”.Buck spokesman Owen Loftus was quick to clarify that Buck did not mean to imply that homosexuality was akin to a disease. Rather “[Buck] was just saying there’s an element of predisposition there and an element of choice.”But, of course, I’m lost with him because any statement that suggests such a thing tends to be said by people who say it’s akin to a disease.Bennet wasted little time in declaring Buck’s views to be “outside the mainstream.”Have we gone around the bend to where the nature of these wedge issues have flip flopped on who gets to use them? Maybe the supposed “fiscal” strut of the “Tea Party” has allowed that to happen?

NEVADA: The most bizarre political fact check ever.“So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it’s the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.] What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly.”I know that people once called Clinton the first black President, and though I can’t imagine the reason he’d ever trout that out for political effect — I guess if he ever said it and anyone fact-checked it, they’d rate it as a “yes”. In the case of Sharron Angle — Sharron Angle needs to show some proof of someone, somewhere — anywhere — calling her Asian.

I let this topic fade out of view, but I was always meaning to come back to it, though never quite knowing what else I’d have to say about it. The only thing I can really say is I had a mental image that popped in immediately upon reading around this:

The movement has been growing exponentially the last five years or so… because of the internet. […]Mostly we are attracting really smart young people… my opinion anyway… from around 14 to 28 years old for the most part. People sick of fake alternative things… like Zeitgeist, political crap, fake solutions of reform.

Imagine, for a moment, two parents of a fourteen year old boy, in the bedroom. The mom gingerly says, “I’m a little worried about Johnny.” The dad asks, “Why is that? He’s getting good grades, and seems to be getting along well at school.” The mom: “I looked through his Internet files, and came across something that’s a little … troubling.” The dad: “Now, now. I think we can let pass a little bit of pornography… it’s not too far removed from what you’d see in Playboy, is it?” The mom: “No. It’s not that. That would make sense. He seems to be getting into…” The dad: “What? Satanism?” Mom: “No. He seems to be getting interested in… um… a complete destruction of Society as we know it and a reshaping … um… I don’t know what this is. Thackocracy?” Dad: “Hm. It’s just a phase. He’ll move past it. Why, when I was his age…”

Rejecting all forms of traditional political science, the Technocrats refused to even use standard geographical maps because their boundaries were political, so they would refer to states only by their geographical coordinates. Names, too, were suspect for some reason so members of the movement in California were designated only by numbers. A speaker at one California rally was introduced only as 1×1809×56!

Anyway, I was reminded of Technocracy when I heard an advertisement for “Technocracy, Inc”, and an invitation to go to their website, this morning on KPOJ, around about 8:20. An invitation to go to their seemingly still unupdated website and “Evolve Again”. What they’re aiming at with a brand new radio ad campaign here, I do not know. But the website does not seem to have improved any from what I can tell from two months ago.

………………..

Technocracy’s rallying cry was “production for use,” which was meant as a contrast to production for profit in the capitalist system.I thought that was Upton Sinclair’s “EPIC” rallying cry. But everyone had different ideas which coincided a bit.

Really? The example given doesn’t even compute — the Republicans targetted Daschle and campaigned to the hilt to defeat him, leveraging Bush’s electoral domination in South Dakota. Anyway, the answer is … of course not. But this is funny.

(3) Halloween weekend is a very big deal in San Francisco. Liberal voters tend to be more into Halloween than conservatives are. Halloween is a big cosplay drinking party that will run nonstop from Friday October 29th through Sunday October 31st, with many San Franciscans dragging tail Monday morning November 1st. Will they be motivated to hit the polls on Tuesday, either going in early before work or after they’ve dragged themselves through a rough recovery Tuesday? Ordinarily, would this wouldn’t be that big of a factor…but in a year when people are demoralized and dejected anyway, how many will use Halloween as an excuse to just not vote?

Someone do a study on whether Elections held on November 2 had an electorate bias based off of Halloween partying hang-overs.
Anyway, John Dennis is quite well known in the right niche blogosphere parts — the “Daily Paul“. Meantime, Summer Shields…:

I live here and NO ONE seems to know who John Dennis is. I have seen more literature and canvassing by the La Rouche backed Democratic candidate Summer Shields. he is a young black man who wants to impeach Obama. John Dennis is doing a lousy job making himself known. He is a Republican, but of the Libertarian thread. He COULD defeat Pelosi because his platform is more like San Franciscans than Pelosi!
He is a very good looking man, too, so all he has to do is plaster his picture up and these dumb queens around here will vote for him just for that reason alone.

So there you go? Note that nobody here is thinking of actually writing Summer Shields’s name in. I’ll be sure to look for the upsurge of commenters online planning on that act.
Meantime, Democratic Party Demorialization for Election cycle 2010 can be quantified with this anecdotal report from the Texas 22 District:I think I’ll sit this one out.OR even this positive notice:
A Democrat, the All-America sounding Kesha Rogers, running for Tom DeLay’s old Congressional seat (“Without DeLay” was once her slogan) on a platform that includes impreaching Obama for supporting Britain’s colonialism (She and the Newt can debate splitting the difference over whose colonialism it really is.) These are candidates deserving of wider recognition, by pundit’s polls (geeks seeking higher ratings). They are entertaining, are fearless about their warts and faux pas, have views that chart new political courses – and have withstood direct challenges by their own parties. They, like the others, won the first round. Do they deserve to lose? You bet’cha.Rogers actually has some good ideas. She and Lyndon LaRouche want to go to Mars; I want them to go to Mars, too.

Hm. @seedypete: PS – Two second Lyndon Larouche story … I was in high school, second row, history/current events class … the teacher was this insane old man … imagine Kinison in “Back to School” …Anyhow, it was just after an election and Lyndon LaRouche had gotten some small amount of votes … and the teacher quietly … oh so quitely walks in front of the class and says … “Lyndon Larouche received x amount of the vote yesterday despite claims that he is anti-Semitic and a neo-Nazi. Why is that? Why would anyone vote for him? Anyone? Anyone?”Everyone else (smartly) sat there quietly … but since the guy in front of me was out sick, this teacher was staring right at me. So, I kind of cleared my throat and said, “Um, they didn’t know who they were voting for?”He looked at me … paused … and said, “They didn’t know who they were voting for … they didn’t know who they were voting for … THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHO THEY WERE VOTING FOR! Then he picked up the empty desk and threw it across the front of the room.Come to find out that was his way of agreeing with my statement … but I very nearly pissed myself … and never spoke in his class again for the rest of the year …

Here we see the LYM, and the “Boomers”, wheeling around:

I’ve never known a Univeristy Professor who has not offered up his or her name.

Burlington Post Office: I’m not sure what the Larouche reference is. Is he still emitting crazy from the grave?

Downer’s Grove, Illinois. “Hi, you ready to remove Obama?” a female LaRouche supporter asked a man walking out of the post office?”The man walking by gave a low-key response: “Um, no, not really.”[…]A Downers Grove Police officer stopped by to caution the two about their approach while at the same time acknowledging the activists’ right to free speech. The officer, who would not provide his name, said the department received five or six calls from people complaining about their display. […]A few people who walked by the display seemed to at least agree with their “impeach Obama” message, referring to socialism and accusing the president of trying to turn America into a socialist country like the former Soviet Union.

Yucca Valley Post Office“We’ve got the real guts on this thing and we know what to do,” said one of the volunteers, who declined to give his name.Several inquisitive motorists stopped to get more information. Most expressed anger toward the current administration, but few registered their financial support for the PAC’s organization.Many asked whether the group had any affiliation with talk show host Glenn Beck, whom they were more interested in supporting.Self-employed resident Raymond Falk took an interest in the PAC’s demonstration Tuesday.“He’s following ‘Mein Kampf,’” Falk said of Obama, referring to Adolf Hitler’s famous work. Falk said he felt the president was “running us into the ground,” and that he wants too much power.Falk wasn’t the only initial supporter. Helen Price also stopped to check out the clamor.“I called the White House today and said ‘I’m tired of them saying I’m fired up,’” Price said, adding that she feels the current administration is “ruining everything in this country.”

Price said she attributes the lack of jobs in the country to “a year on health care,” and said she felt President Obama’s efforts should have been focused elsewhere.

“Where do I sign up?” asked Bud Foster, after seeing the controversial posters.

Associated with Glenn Beck?

Wow…this LaRouche guy is looking for his 15 minutes of fame but just can’t seem to find it. He’s been associated with the SOCIALIST Workers Party, ran for president under the US Labor Party and even the DEMOCRATIC Party. So just who does he want to represent…himself?

Remember when the left glommed onto the first sighting of an Obama-Hitler sign as originating from the tea party, when in fact the man holding the sign was a democrat supporter of John Dingall? No wonder they have swept Democrat Rogers’ demand for impeachment (complete with Obama-Hitler signs) under the rug. It is impossible to fit a square peg Obama opponent into a round hole narrative.

Under Soros management are four core elements functioning as a single integrated foreign agency:** The Democracy Alliance. a private billionaires’ political club founded by Soros in 2004-2005;** The 2-million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), led by Soros servants Andy Stern and Anna Burger. […]
** The Tides Foundation, a tax-exempt channel for political funding ($80 million per year) from anonymous wealthy donors.

** The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — ACORN — a vast street-level corps created in the 1970s as a neo-fascist “New Left” control mechanism over the black ghetto, […]

I note some key differences here between any item of conspiracism floated from Larouchies and the same ones floated elsewhere. The report identifies the Bagram “black jail” as a “screening facility” run by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the military’s counter-terrorism unit which runs a network of secret prisons, and deploys hit teams around the world for the purpose of “snatch and grabs” and targetted assassinations—much of which is falsely attributed to the CIA. The JSOC also carries out many of the drone bombing raids, especially those which kill civilians, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (U.S. government documents show that the JSOC was also involved in the October 1986 raid against Lyndon LaRouche and his associates, in which the intention was to use the search-and-seizure operation as a cover for the assassination of LaRouche.)

Larouche is the only one that’s going to insert his Assassination into the world picture.

I listened carefully to the Reisman lecture, and I read carefully the WSM material, and I learned nothing new about true (laissez-faire) capitalism and nothing new about socialism, whether of the statist-totalitarian or (supposedly) “democratic-consensus” variety. Reisman is (and Rand, before him, was) spot-on in regard to the true totalitarian nature of fascism and National Socialism. The WSM folks read like a near-cousin of the Lyndon Larouche stuff.

Mr. Lauten–If you’re so unhappy with Democrats, please feel free to leave the Party and take Mr. Larouche with you.

Larouchites are batty –

Also Bill Lauten is running for State Treasurer on the “American Indepence Party” — or Constitution Party.

In Wikipedia News — the anonymous ISPs that currently make up the Wikipedia Sock Puppet Team have come up with the need for inclusion of:In 2008, ”Fenomeni e Fisica” (”Phenomena and Physics”) was published by the Italian publisher Minerva. It is a high-school level science textbook written by P. Marazzini, M.E. Bergamaschini, and L. Mazzoni, which includes a section on the “LaRouche-Riemann method,” contrasting LaRouche’s view of the non-entropic nature of human development to the pro-entropic view of the [[Club of Rome]]. The authors say that LaRouche emphasizes technological innovation and human creativity, contradicting a deterministic view of society and economics, but that he doesn’t clarify how these factors affect quality of life.Also:While there is almost no coverage of LaRouche economics, there are very large and irrelevant sections on “Psycho-sexuality and political organizing”, “Marxist roots,” and homosexuals. These seem to be there only as an excuse to include a bunch of attacks on LaRouche.You go with what’s relevant.

Anyway, they’re getting their way a bit, though, with one editor who keeps ending his missives with a great “Cheers!” … Curious to note:

There does seem to be a problem with the sourcing of views. What is being requested under WP:RS#Quotations is a citation of the original source. In most cases that has not been provided. In some cases a citation was provided that did not correspond to the attributed view. For example, this source does not say that LaRouche views the Beatles as “tools of oligarchs or Aristoleans” — it simply makes it clear that he dislikes them (and I’m not convinced that this is a notable view, worthy of being in the lede.) This source doesn’t say that Dick Cheney “ordered the 9/11 attacks” — it says that “the entirety’ of Cheney’s power over U.S. policy-shaping ‘was gained solely through those of his presently undiscovered political benefactors who staged the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001,” which I understand to mean that Cheney was able to increase his influence due to the attacks. Since this is a BLP I think it is important that the views attributed closely match the original source. The alleged views on the Holocaust and “Zionist conspiracy” still have no original source cited. Delia Peabody (talk) 22:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)That’s amazing Delia. I have never ever, counting from my one and only drug trip 10 years ago, seen such a massive distortion of reality as in the Beatles-“quote”. I’m stunned. Who created this crap ?

So, we’re moving away from the “Larouche was on the radio in Salt Lake on the morning of 9/11 and” he fingered the Israelis as it was happening? A source of pride in an interview I once heard with a … Wolfson? Wolfman? Also, I once asked a Larouche Youther why he joined, and he made sure to mention in his answer that 9/11 was an Inside Job…

In other wikipedia news, the Kesha Rogers article is being moved into a generarlized Texas elections article, as This person does not qualify for her own article in Wikipedia. Politician who has never held office, neve won an election, is far behind in the polls, etc.) What polls is s/he talking about?

The Obama line on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is something that rolls back to the 1996 Adolph Reed, Jr Village Voice article…
… His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over programThe belief is that it’ll get through a Lame Duck Senate with somewhere between four and ten Republicans replacing Democrat waiting in the wings, Republicans defined off of a Right Plank that has long since stretched the credulity line that they are exclusively concerned with matters fiscal.
If Obama has a point — DADT was established through a legislative process and is best un-established through a legislative process — it is undermined through the fact that the repeal of DADT failed by a vote count of 57 – 42, or 42 votes against repeal. Two of the Senators, the Maine Republicans, claiming they were not going for it because — wait for it — the Process was wrong. Wheels inside Wheels, everyone looking for a Process Escape Clause.

In this Lame Duck session, assuming Jim DeMint doesn’t have the power of Holding this thing up, the defeated Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln will switch her vote — her political considerations gone as she settles in for her new Washington Lobbying job, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine will no longer feel the brunt of heavy Republican Whip Pressure. Maybe he knows that will happen. Or maybe he should just have the Justice Department skip an Appeal.

Something that I should have known regarding Carl Paladino and his ham-fisted appeal to radical right Orthodox Jewish rabbis, reading their scripted denunciation of the “gay lifestyle“, and his follow-up interview / apology suggesting the “gay pride parade” grinding. (Note: treat these things like you would if you took your child to a PG-13 or R rated movie — distract them during these brief moments.) My immediate thought went over his pornographic email propensity, and specifically that bestiality related porn. Strangely, that’s not the most relevant problem with his cc’d email list. His hypocrisy comes with something more standard in the land of pornography — as one would have to figure, his cache included faux lesbians — which he made sure to spot-light with the word “AWESOME”. Probably doing more than “grinding”, but I guess they’re not doing it on the streets, so it’s not hypocritical.
Remind me to take a look to judge the awesomeness for myself.

The truth is Paladino’s campaign is another of those curiosities, about as worth bothering with in political horse race pictures as Christine O’Donnell’s campaign. Though, telling the Chris Coons — Christine O’Donnell debate was shown on CNN, while the more relevant Harry Reid — Sharron Angle debate didn’t get beyond CSPAN. The more brutal truth about Paladino is that much of his words would play all right in much of this country — see Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn’s 2004 campaign which included the great scourge of high school girls in South-east Oklahoma going off to the bathroom in pairs to… get their Larry Craig on? (Here’s his 2010 opponent, by the way.) Given this scandal, I imagine…
These things aren’t well remembered or known. Paladino wouldn’t be getting so much attention except he’s in New York, a media capitol.

I doubt there’s been any real rise in gay teen suicides or bullying, so much as the Internet has allowed a national focus to slide various stories together — as it has excaberated the terms of certain avenues of bullying ala the Rutgers student (and beyond). But, as they say, whatever. There’s a certain “h”m to this candlelight vigil. I have visions of a bully looking over the crowd for their particular target, and relentlessly teasing them the next day at school. A thought I had with this story about a high density suicide high school —

Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn’t get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant, his mother says. He wore a stuffed animal strapped to his arm, a lemur named Georges that was given its own seat in class.Braver lad than I would have been if I had a strong impetus to wear pink and carry around a stuffed animal, I suppose. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Though my vague sympathies for school uniforms are shading in.)

Perez Hilton, in view of the publicized bullying and suicide stories, and who — in case you don’t know is gay — has announced he is moving away from being mean to celebrities. Interesting, but I don’t understand the point. Understand the world of Celebrity Gossip is the world of Schaudenfruede. I think it’s fair to say that the celebrity tabloids developed as a reaction to a sort of Guarded and selective Trade Publicity Manchine that emphasized their Glamourous lifestyle — and, for instance, Rock Hudson’s striking heterosexuality. We then revolve into the world of passive aggressive celebrities who invite the papparazi to violate their privacy, and then hound over to friendly publications for either damage control or further publicity. So, at the supermarket checkout line, you’ve got your choice of Mean to Celebrity or Nice to Celebrity publications. How long will it take for Perez Hilton to go back to type — who knows?, and I’ll not be there to notice.